Yale's dinosaurs to get straightend out

Updated 8:59 pm, Thursday, January 31, 2013

The dinosaur hall at the Peabody Museum in New Haven will be shut down for two years for renovations beginning in January 2014, when mounts like the Apatosaurus will be repositioned to have their tails in the air, reflecting the current scientific consensus.

The dinosaur hall at the Peabody Museum in New Haven will be shut down for two years for renovations beginning in January 2014, when mounts like the Apatosaurus will be repositioned to have their tails in the

The Apatosaurus mount at the American Museum of Natural History. About a decade ago, this and other large sauropods in the museumâÄôs collection were re-mounted to reflect current thinking on how these giant animals walked, with their tails off the ground.

The Apatosaurus mount at the American Museum of Natural History. About a decade ago, this and other large sauropods in the museumâÄôs collection were re-mounted to reflect current thinking on how these giant

A Szechuanosaurus skeleton is part of the exhibit âÄúChinasaurs: Dinosaur Discoveries from China,âÄù that also features the skeletons, skulls, nests and eggs of more than a dozen Asian dinosaurs at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. The exhibit opens Saturday and continues through Arpril 21, 2013.

A Szechuanosaurus skeleton is part of the exhibit âÄúChinasaurs: Dinosaur Discoveries from China,âÄù that also features the skeletons, skulls, nests and eggs of more than a dozen Asian dinosaurs at the

Marie Wardell, right, and her mother, Dorothy Valle, both of Greenwich, view the exhibit âÄúChinasaurs: Dinosaur Discoveries from China,âÄù that features the skeletons, skulls, nests and eggs of more than a dozen Asian dinosaurs at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. The exhibit opens Saturday and continues through Arpril 21, 2013.

Marie Wardell, right, and her mother, Dorothy Valle, both of Greenwich, view the exhibit âÄúChinasaurs: Dinosaur Discoveries from China,âÄù that features the skeletons, skulls, nests and eggs of more than

NEW HAVEN -- Dinosaurs have been slouching about and walking the wrong way in Connecticut since at least 1946.

But their posture is about to change. The Yale Peabody Museum's Great Hall of Dinosaurs is going to close for two years for a $30 million renovation that includes remounting all of its fossil skeletons in more life-like poses -- the way scientists now believe thunder lizards roamed and even scampered over the earth.

No longer will the prehistoric monsters be lumbering "tail draggers." Instead, their bones will convey a sinuous sense of life and movement.

"The Great Hall is pretty much the same as it was in 1946," said Peabody Director Derek E.G. Briggs. "The poses of the dinosaurs are now very static -- not very dynamic -- so we want to make them appear much more active."

The changes include the realignment of the huge Apatosaurus bones so its massive ladder-like tail trails erect behind the creature, rather than flopping on the floor.

Other large dinosaurs in the hall will receive similar back and bone treatments. Some might appear to be guarding a clutch of eggs, Briggs said. Others will be under attack by predators.

Gone will be the robust I-beams and plumbing pipe that now support the more massive bones.

"That's how they did things back in the 1940s," when the dinosaurs were assembled in the Great Hall, Briggs said.

In addition, floors will be shored up and upper-level walkways will be constructed so visitors will have a better perspective on the collections, he said.

"It was in the 1970s, thanks to the work of Yale's John Ostrom, that paleontologists began thinking differently about how dinosaurs appeared in life," said Gina Gould, curator of science at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, where the "Chianasaurs: Dinosaurs from China" exhibit will be on display until April 21. That exhibit includes replicas of giant dinosaur skeletons in the now accepted and more realistic poses.

The Great Hall, built in 1925, has delighted countless children, adults and teachers alike over the decades. But its skeleton mounts have long been thought to be inaccurate because it's now known that large plant-eating sauropods like the Apatosaurus typically held their tails aloft while walking.

Hundreds of new fossils, most already in the Peabody's collection, will be added to the two rooms, too, Briggs said.

The stegosaurus will be moved to the front of the hall, but this time it'll be under attack from a small carnivorous dinosaur.

"All of our mounts are actual fossils -- not reproductions -- and I suspect that not everyone knows that," Briggs said.

The Great Hall is also home to scores of other fossils, too, including Stegosaurus, the mammal-like reptile Edaphosaurus and the huge sea turtle Archelon.

Along the far wall are the small but still terrifying Deinonychus, or "terrible claw" dinosaurs, that used to hunt in packs and appeared as the vicious, meat-eating "velociraptors" in the movie "Jurassic Park."

There are also displays of long-extinct fish and amphibians.

The Apatosaurus used to be more popularly known as a "Brontosaurus" until it was renamed in the 1980s, reflecting current thinking on the naming of the species. They grew up to 75 feet in length, and weighed in at 35 tons.

Museum officials expect that the work, which starts in 2014, will be completed in time for the Peabody's 150th anniversary in 2016. About 150,000 people visit the museum every year, and just about all of them head straight for the Great Hall.

"But all of this is contingent on raising the money," said Briggs, adding that prospective donors will find a way to give on the Peabody's website.

The room is also famous for Rudolph F. Zallinger's Pulitzer prize-winning, 110-foot mural, "The Age of Reptiles," which depicts the evolution of terrestrial vertebrates and plants on a panoramic timeline of 350 million years, from the Devonian to the Cretaceous, with large trees separating the geologic periods. The mural, completed in 1946, took more than four years to complete. It has even been featured on U.S. postage stamps and made the cover of Life on Sept. 7, 1953.

Gould said that Ostrom and other paleontologists rewrote the book on dinosaurs over the last 40 years as the slow-moving, stomping picture of the animals was questioned.

A number of other museums have already restructured their dinosaur mounts to reflect thinking that abandons the tail-dragger model. The American Museum of Natural History, for example, remounted some, but not all, of its skeletons for its Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs and the Hall of Saurichian Dinosaurs, a project that was completed in 1995.

The change was needed because the evidence was incontrovertible.

"They started finding more well-preserved dinosaurs with rope-like tendons that ran from the back to the tail, which would have made the tail completely erect," Gould said.

She also noted that the bones themselves, whose shapes offer a road map of how the tendons, muscles and ligaments were attached, also support a more dynamic posture.

Furthermore, modern birds offer evidence of how some dinosaurs were put together, as birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs.

Gould notes that mounting an actual large dinosaur fossil is difficult, exacting work, owing to the sheer mass of the fossilized bones, which are, in essence, rock. This rock is also quite fragile.

"Rock doesn't bend," she wrily notes.

This is why the traveling Chinasaur exhibit does not have actual fossils, but rather is made of cast polymer reproductions.

"If they were the real thing, we'd have to shore up our floor -- it would be like parking four cars in there," she said. "A fossilized T-Rex head would be a thousand pounds."